Lynch Law

Mob-law, law administered by private persons. According to
Webster, the word lynch refers to a Mr. James Lynch, a farmer, of
Piedmont, in Virginia. The tale is that, as Piedmont, on the frontier,
was seven miles from any law court, the neighbours, in 1686, selected
James Lynch, a man of good judgment and great impartiality, to pass
sentence on offenders for the nonce. His judgments were so judicious
that he acquired the name of Judge Lynch, and this sort of law went by
the name of Lynch law. In confirmation of this story, we are told there
was a James Lynch Fitz-Stephen, who was warden of Galway in 1526; and
in the capacity of warden he passed sentence of death on his own son
for murder. (See Burlaw.)

“George was lynched, as he deserved.” —Emerson English Traits,
chap. ix